UF Researcher: Wright Brothers’ Epic Flight Could Have Been In Florida

November 13, 2003

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Had America’s most famous flying duo heeded advice of a friendly engineer, the upcoming centennial anniversary of the Wright brothers’ famed flight might be happening near Fort Myers, not at Kill Devil Hills, N.C., a University of Florida researcher says.

Engineer Octave Chanute, a friend of the Wright Brothers and an expert in the field of aeronautics, recommended that Pine Island, in the Gulf of Mexico off southwest Florida, provided the best conditions for launching their glider, said Kevin McCarthy, a UF English professor who has written a book detailing Florida’s foray into flight. Favorable winds, a location near water and a lack of dwellings nearby were all factors in Pine Island’s favor, he said.

“The state’s brush with destiny never came to be, probably because Florida was inaccessible and did not have the tool shops and repair places needed for airplanes,” he said. “But Florida has many flying firsts, and a strong case can be made that it has played a greater role in our nation’s aviation history than any other state.” McCarthy’s new book, “Aviation in Florida,” was release by Pineapple Press this week, in advance of the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ epic flight on Dec. 17, 1903, at Kill Devil Hills.

Among the state’s claims to fame: It was in Florida that a radio was first used on an aircraft; Jimmy Doolittle set off for California in 1922, becoming the first pilot to fly across the United States in less than a day; and the first commercial airline flight took place, he said.

The state also played a major role in the “what-might-have-been” annals of aviation in a fatal plane crash off the east coast near Melbourne in 1928, he said.

Henry Ford, intrigued by the idea of mass producing planes for ordinary families as he had Model T’s, designed a craft for a test pilot to fly in a promotional tour from Detroit to Florida, McCarthy said. But the 320-pound Ford Flivver, with its 20-foot wingspan and the ability to cruise at 100 mph, crashed off the Florida coast probably due to a malfunction in the plane, killing its pilot and dashing hopes for aerial commuting, he said.

“Ford was so discouraged that he gave up on planes for every family and decided to stick with cars,” McCarthy said.

Another little-known might-have-been concerns the doomed dirigible Hindenburg, which was all the rage as a new mode of transatlantic travel, he said.

“Lakehurst, N.J., is indelibly etched in the minds of many Americans because of the airship’s fiery destruction, but the location could easily have been Opa-Locka, Fla.,” he said. “Under the terms of a Navy permit, the Hindenburg was allowed to land and stay at Opa-Locka at a cost of $100 a day while using the base.” The blimp never did land in Opa-Locka, but if it hadn’t crashed in New Jersey, it might have, he said.

In another airship tragedy, the only U.S. Navy blimp to be shot down by a submarine in World War II fell to a German U-boat 30 miles off the Florida Keys on July 18, 1943, he said.

Florida’s aviation draws include blue skies, flat terrain, and water on three sides for seaplanes and rocket discards, the parts of the rocket that blast the shuttle into space and then fall into the ocean, McCarthy said. In the early days, the lack of roads through the state’s swamps to deliver the mail encouraged air travel for mail delivery, he said.

Eastern Airlines started by delivering mail between Miami and Jacksonville in a tiny biplane, years later inaugurating one-day service between New York and Miami with the motto “From Frost to Flowers in Just Eight Hours,” McCarthy said. National Airlines – the first domestic airline to offer jet service – also began in Florida, as did Pan Am.

Florida’s prominence in aviation continued during World War II, when thousands of pilots, including some in Britain’s Royal Air Force, trained at dozens of airfields in the state, including Eglin Air Force Base, the world’s largest, McCarthy said. “Many pilots remembered how nice Florida was and came back to live when they left the service or retired,” he said.

Gen. James “Jimmy” Doolittle trained his pilots at Eglin for the morale-boosting air raid on Tokyo during the dark days of early World War II, McCarthy said. And Jacqueline Cochran, the director of the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots who grew up near Pensacola, set more aviation records for speed, altitude and distance than any pilot of the time, he said.

Perhaps the most famous female pilot associated with Florida was Amelia Earhart, who took off from Municipal Airport in Miami on her ill-fated 1937 flight around the world, which ended with her plane disappearing in the Pacific Ocean, he said.

Today many amateur pilots can park their planes in their own back yards, and an increasing number of Floridians are doing so. The state has more than 40 of the nation’s estimated 400 airpark communities, where residents who fly to work or for pleasure use grass strips or roads for runways, often building hangars the size of their homes, he said.

An unusual facet of the state’s aviation history lies in the background of one of its aviation company, which was founded by a Florida-based Seminole Indian tribe, McCarthy said. Former Chief James Billie’s long-time interest in flying led the tribe to establish Micco Aircraft Company, based at St. Lucie County International Airport in Fort Pierce, he said.

“That’s a neat trend when you think about it – Indians making airplanes,” he said. “It’s another example of how Florida has played a part in some important aviation milestones.”

Warren J. Brown, newsletter editor for the Florida Aviation Historical Society, said the subject of McCarthy’s book is a fitting tribute. “Florida is the home of naval aviation, commercial aviation and space aviation,” he said. “And during World War II, it was a mecca for training.”